Understanding
by arctique48
Summary: The War is raging and it hurts, but then she meets him by the bridge and all can be forgotten until sunrise.


**Disclaimer: Hogwarts etc. belongs to JKR... **

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He knew her. She wasn't sure how, but he knew. He understood her every thought and it didn't make sense. It didn't make sense because she wasn't like him and he wasn't like her. They were opposite, different in every respect, from hair colour to moral background. She was compassion and he was hatred and yet he was the only one who understood. The only one she could turn to when the night grew dark and the memories returned.

"_You can see them now, cant you? They watch you and wait." _

"_How do you know?" _

"_I know because I see them too…"_

Your voice so soft, so uncertain, so utterly, utterly lost… His was the voice of a memory, one you couldn't quite place. But he was part of you, through that nameless recognition and that thinnest link across the abyss. The abyss of this war you hate with all your existence…

He was born to hate, perhaps it was him that taught it to you… taught you to hate as you do now… But that would be placing the blame unnecessarily and you know it. For that you have no one but yourself to condemn. It was your active hate that lost you so much, and yet you do nothing to hinder it.

Hating and hating and crying and hating. That is what conflict does to people, you see, it breaks them down, down to dust and dirt and blinding raw hate.

You claw at your swiftly retreating morals and goodness and innocence and he watches you from the shadows, he was born to the dark and bred to hate. He sees you grieve and listens to your tears and broken dreams but he does nothing. Not because he doesn't understand, because he does, he understands more than anyone because he knows you and it doesn't make sense. But because for every tear and every shout and scream he has a memory and a scar and a gaping bleeding wound of his own.

Comfort was never something that existed between you. Indifference, distain, mistrust, even hate, then later intrigue, understanding and dependency, but never, not once was there comfort. How does one comfort another for pain that everyday rips them apart too?

He watches you as you cry and you listen to him when he talks and sometimes you talk back and then there is conversation and sarcasm and an inkling of normality… Normality that so long ago was lost.

Your friends do everything they can for you. They know you are fading fast, no bred for war, not born to this world of darkness and distrust. It is in their blood and even in their confusion and despair they understand. But you do not understand and they don't understand you. They try and they try, but time and time again they fail and you are alone in your hurt.

Until he comes.

That first time when you thought the world would end. When you stood by the bridge and sobbed out your heart and hated life and death and love and war with all your soul. And then he came and you hated him and he said nothing and you cried. You cried and cried and all he did was watch the water.

Neither of you spoke a word that night. You had your tears and he had his silence and that was enough. Dawn came and he turned to you, eyes clashing as he nodded. You didn't speak a word and he was gone.

You went back to your life and fought and killed and with every drop of blood some more of you died. And he did the same, and it didn't matter because that was what he was born to do and you were more different then than ever before.

Another day, a week, a month and you saw him again. He was dark and he was cold and you were light and warm and fading. This time he spoke to you and you replied and hated him for being so different. You hated him because in his eyes there was nothing while yours held a world of hate and pain and loss.

He was different now. So much changed from when you thought you knew him at school, when life was easy in black and white. You shouldn't have been surprised. You were at war and you both had fought and killed countless numbers. You had changed why shouldn't he? But you were. Surprised. Shocked even. Because he spoke to you and he understood and he hated you but didn't kill. Wasn't that what he was born for? To hate and kill?

He talked and you listened. He explained something and you argued, and together on that bridge you debated death and life and love and war until the sun came back and he took to the shadows while you walked the path of light.

You knew you shouldn't, but you did. You returned the next night and he was there, and this time you sat and talked, of the past, of the future and of everything in between. He wasn't a friend and you rarely agreed but he did understand you. And it didn't make sense. Nothing about him did. He was a living breathing walking talking contradiction and for all your hate you could not deny that he made you forget. Even as you talked of memories and scars he let you forget and in another place, another time or plane or world, you might have loved him for that.

Another night, another meeting by the bridge. This time he had whiskey and you lay on the grass and watched the stars sway and dance and sing and cry tears of shame at the failures of the earth. That night he was beautiful and his voice was pretty. That night you did not cry or argue and he was not silent. That night was almost perfect and you fell asleep beside him.

The war was violent and you killed yet more in an attempt to buy peace. You had taken your long held principles and left them for carrion with all the bloodied corpses in the wake of you and your friends' crusades. Your friend was hurt and you killed faster and angrier, Cause forgotten. What was it you were fighting for? Light. Goodness. Vengeance. Survival. So many things were broken and there was no longer any mercy.

They took you and tortured you, then your friends took you and tortured them and the circle was vicious and the lines all blurred.

"Would you die for them?" He asked you. And where you would have affirmed with truth and certainty you faltered and paused. So much was different and there was now no more reason for dieing than there was for living.

He watched you and nodded. He understood when you didn't know how to. It did not make sense and neither did he. He was the enemy and you should kill him, you were a mudblood and he should kill you, and yet neither did.

"What do you fight for?" You asked him and he grinned sharks teeth to the dark.

"For life."

"Whose?"

"My own."

And it was the truth. What else was there left? That is what it does… The fighting, the conflict and war. It takes away values. It strips mankind to the bone and that is all you have left. Yourself. Yourself and that primitive drive to keep on living when there truly is no point.

There was silence and you sat beneath the tree, a canopy of darkness separating you from the constant drone of water under the bridge. Your bridge.

"What do _you _fight for?"

…"I fight for innocence."

"Whose?"

"My own."

He smiled and understood and you said no more, just sat, back against the tree and watched the twilight shatter.

Daylight came and you descended one again into Hell. They killed and you killed and the muggles died and you watched and were helpless. And then you were angry so you killed some more and they got angry so they tortured some good guys and then _they_ got mad and there was a big battle with flashing lights of spells and a blanket taste of blood. And then the floor was damp and dark and the sun was high and the people were dead but not you. You were alive and they were alive and there was no in between because you'd killed them all in the crossfire.

It hurt still and your faltering conscience wondered around looking lost and you preached a bit and then fell silent, a hypocrite. You wondered then, as you sat at your desk doing paperwork and reviewing death certificates, exactly what had happened to you. This was not the little schoolgirl that fought for equality with determination and pride. This was a woman, no, a monster, with little morality and too much power. Your Cause was corrupt even within yourself.

For the first time in an age, you looked at your friends. You really _looked_.

Ron was faltering and it was plain to see. He sat with head in hands, ignoring the gashes on his arms and the bruises on his ribs and instead concentrating on the pain in his heart. He had lost so much and he fought for that. He fought for the memory of his little sister and his parents. He fought in desperation to make up for the failings of his brother, Percy the traitor. He fought for Bill in St Mungo's and for Charlie up at Hogwarts. He fought and he fought yet never for himself and you respected him so much for that.

Harry was different. He was nothing like he had been at school when life was easy with good and evil and nothing in between. He was a warrior, a veteran where he had just been a lost schoolboy with too much responsibility. He reminded you of Mad-Eye Moody who had gone down fighting months back. He was harsh and brutal and nothing would come between him and catching the bad guys. It was an obsession and it kept him going. That drive to avenge and prove himself. That was all he had left and it kept him fighting, the unofficial savoir of your world.

You watched them and found you loved them more than ever. Harry who endured so much and never gave up, Ron who lost everything and never stopped fighting. They were your lifelines, the anchors that kept you safe on the side of light. With their presence you didn't lose perspective and there was more to the War than you and your petty needs for existence.

But for all that, they did not understand you and it was for that reason you went back. Back to the bridge, that thin stretch across the abyss. It was the only place you could meet him you realised as you watched him approach. Nowhere else would do, for this was common ground. This was the No Man's Land of your War and here and here alone you could meet him and all would be forgotten until sunrise.

There was no moon and the stars were bright and he smiled at you. It was pained but he had made the effort so you did too.

"Missed me?"

"You're late."

"I wasn't aware there was a set time, Miss Granger."

You glare and all is forgotten, no War, no blood or pain or haunting dreams. Just you, him and the water.

"Don't push your luck Malfoy."

"Wouldn't dream of it."

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